Solid advice "Know something about everything and everything about something"

David is by far my fav chessable author he creates opening courses true to their spirit. I hope he makes a course of Najdorf in future.

Video would be much better if you put the digital board with some snapshots of the openings and mentioned moves

I designed this guys chessable course artwork cover!

Love David's course on the Dzindzi

Excellent. Thank you.

I dont think there is any proven answer when it comes to having a broad vs narrow opening repertoire.  Everyone has to eventually decide for themselves when it comes to that - based on how long they have studied/played the game,  their approximate rating strength,  and especially how much time they can devote to studying openings and then apply it to actual games vs other opponents.  Chess can be played by anyone whose  age ranges from a kid to an elderly person, so priorities can vary between players when they are in the 20 & 30's, vs 40's, 50's, 60's and beyond.  And not just with openings- but to study tactics/middlegames and endgames as well.  With chess, it can  really feel like the more you try to learn & improve, you always find out, the more there IS TO learn, its never ending.

Keep in mind, some folks might be into chess for a long time but at some point, might wish to make more of an effort to improve in middle-age.  Let say, if they had a rating of about 1700 or 1800 , but their goal is to reach 2000-2100.  One thing we can probably all agree on is that in order to make progress, we all have to keep studying/playing consistently.  Alot of people might not have a problem in that regard, as chess can certainly be addictive. But if someone lacks focus, and just studies on & off, without any kind of structured schedule, then its hard to imagine they will be successful when it comes to significant improvement. The same applies to any hobby, in my case, I enjoy playing guitar for a long time, and if I dont pick up a guitar to play after a certain amount of time gone by, its very easy for my fingers/hands to feel "rusty", thus with chess, the brain can feel quite "rusty" as well if you're not involved with chess consistently.  Thus, lets establish the whole point that, before you decide to commit to an Opening repertoire procedure, you should commit to finding the time needed in your schedule to do that, if you want to be successful, that is.

My opinion is that a narrower rep is not necessarily bad at all.  Especially for an older/mature player.  Sure, I love to play 1. e4 as white and would be happy to play my favorite Vienna game/gambit.  But to play e4 means that you have to study/prepare for so many replies:  Sicilian, Caro Kann, French, Pirc, Scandi, Modern, Alekhine, Owens....  Thus, I decided for me,  I would focus on 1. b3 the Nimzo-Larsen, and even though within this opening, there are several black replies, overall, its playing the opening I want to play vs an opponent, and if I have to knock my brains out to do a deep-dive to get really strong in an opening, its ONE opening, as opposed to e4 and dealing with all the stuff involved in a whole range of openings.

Ditto when it comes to the black side of a repertoire, such as how to play against 1. e4   For me, I decided to go with the Scandi 1.. d5   The reason is because there are not so many strong 2nd moves for white to play other than 2. exd (though some are certainly playable, 2. e5 for example).

If I chose the Sicilian for black instead,  and spent alot of time studying/preparing a favorite line as my weapon, the issue is that before I could even reach my pet-line, its likely I might not even get to play it at all, being that white has MANY choices just on the 2nd move-:  Wing gambit, Morra gambit, Nc3 closed, c3 alapin,  f4 grand prix and so forth.  My gosh-  that is ALOT of work and time needed to study all those variations!  

But of course, nothing is carved in stone.  A decent-level player (1600, 1700 etc..) can certainly put together an opening rep that is more narrow and then see what their results are with it.  If they intend to keep playing chess in the years ahead, they can always adjust their repertoire and widen it accordingly and add other lines if they want to.

Good stuff. Although I didn't know Robert De Niro was a chess theoretician  :)

Hi Dave!

I own his courss and use it as referance

David interesting stuff but you neglected to discuss the bird the finest opening in the land 🐦‍⬛

I only listen to GM or higher, sorry boss

I'm sorry but I feel like I wasted 25 minutes of my life. David may be a great teacher and course author but the entire 25-minute interview boils down to "play anything and everything because it doesn't really matter".